Jean-Marc Ferry

Jean-Marc Ferry (1946- ) is a french philosopher and in particular a political philosopher who translates the thought of Jürgen Habermas in French and whose the main work "Les puissances de l'expérience" (Cerf, Paris, 1991), was described by Paul Ricoeur In Libération as one of the most important contemporary thought:

It is high time to say that Jean-Marc Ferry’s book "Les Puissances de l’expérience" is one of the most important works recently published in the field of social and political philosophy [French "Il est grand temps de dire que le livre de Jean-Marc Ferry, Les Puissances de l’expérience, est l’une des œuvres les plus importantes récemment publiées dans le champ de la philosophie sociale et politique..." Libération, 12st november 1992 [http://users.skynet.be/sky95042/ricoeur.html] ]

He is certainly a disciple of Habermas but has his own original thought.

Narration, Interpretation, Argumentation, Reconstruction

The forms of discourse through which identity is constructed [are] : narration, interpretation, argumentation, and reconstruction.For Ferry there are four forms of the human identity: narration, interpretation, argumentation, and reconstruction. P. Smith wrote:

Historical and discursive progress from narration toward reconstruction is associated with increasing reflexivity about identity and the grounds upon which it is established. Narration, in Ferry’s view, consists of ossified traditional myths which define identities in a more or less prescriptive, taken-forgranted way. Interpretation, on the other hand, involves the assimilation of identity to universal categories like law and justice and is exemplified in early Christian and ancient Greek thought. Argumentation opens up claims of identity to rational dialogue as embodied, for example, in the Enlightenment. Reconstruction, the final step toward reflexivity, involves hermeneutic attempts to understand the historical grounds behind the "good reasons" offered by others in argumentation. This is in part a logical and ethical consequence of the shift from it to you (acknowledging subjectivity) which emerges with argumentation itself.

[Philip Smith (University of Queensland) "Les puissances de l'expérience" in, Contemporary Sociology, American Sociological Assoc., May 1994, vol. 23, number 3. [http://users.skynet.be/sky95042/review.html] ]

Postnational Identity and Europe

Ferry is also a man who proposes about the building of Europa the concept of "postnational identity" i.e. a way to think the European Union as a middle to separate the national identity and the political identity. The former and the latter are unified in the classical Nation-State but separated in the process of the building of Europa whose the ultimate political sense is not the Nation-State but a "Political Community" which, according Jean-Marc Ferry's thought is not a Federal State nor a State in general but an absolutely other political building. This original building is deriving from the experience of the two World wars, which according Ferry, forced the European peopleto organize their relationship beyond classical sovereignty and war.

Notes

Major Works

* "Les puissances de l'expérience", Tome I, Le sujet et le verbe, Cerf, Paris, 1991, ISBN 2-204-04371-0

External links

* [http://users.skynet.be/sky95042 Page d’accueil Jean-Marc Ferry]
* [http://www.eurotopics.net/en/presseschau/autorenindex/autor_ferry_jean_marc A kantian Approach for Europe]